by Ted Oswald
He prepared the bodies himself. Dragged them on a makeshift sled himself. Dug the graves himself.
No one was willing to join in a burial for the murdered when the murderers still roamed about, meting out senseless death.
His father had been strung up on a tree before being shot. It was a villain’s end. The type of callous murder slavers would commit to send a message beyond words. Today, though the method was the same, the message was different: to oppose the coup was to face this end. His father had not been a perfect man, but he had been good. As far as the Son was concerned, his mother had been a saint.
Day turns to night. He tamps the graves with his foot, slides the shovel into the earth beside the newly filled holes. The sweat and tears dampen him and make him cold.
He had climbed the mapou tree like he did as a child, when he would practice going up and down so that he could retrieve fruit from other trees that no one else was brave enough to reach. He climbed today to loosen the ropes that suspended his father’s drained body in the air. The man’s head slumped down as he spun in a lazy pirouette. The Son loosed the knot, watched the body slip. His father was at last returned to the ground that had given him life, sustained him, and would now swallow him.
He reunited his father and mother, laying them side by side.
Shots came in the distance, but the Son, he did not care. He fell to his knees and wept. For his parents, they were no more.
The murderers camped in the open, under a cloudless sky and slivered, silent Moon.
They slept soundly, as if judgment would never visit them for their crimes.
The Son watched their circle, lit by two weak fires. There was a watchman, but he was debauched. Before long he would fall asleep like the others.
The Son palmed his koulin’s hilt, feeling its weight. He had grown up with such blades. He only thought of them as tools to help make life thrive. He never dwelled on their capacity to do the opposite.
His teeth gritted, he began slashing at the dark. He muttered exhortations. He riled himself from the weariness and exhaustion that dulled his senses.
Kill them
For what they did
End them
So they do no more
The blade was his father’s. It was beautiful in its time-tested wear. Sharp. Faithful. It did not know whether it sliced through stalk or sinew, and did not care. It was an unthinking extension, willing to do its bearer’s will.
The leader lay in the middle of them–eight men in total. He would be the first to go. If the Son could kill others, good. But this one, the head, would be chopped off the figurative body.
The blade arced silver with each cut of the air. The Son’s heart throbbed. His mind clouded.
Jistis, he told himself. Justice, he nearly cried aloud.
He was tackled to the ground. He strained against the tackler’s arms, but they were thick, and powerful. The Son screamed, but a hand clapped his mouth and trapped the sound.
— You will die if you do this! came the harsh whisper. They will kill you! Take it out on us!
The Son knew the voice. Knew it well. The clouds parted. Thought returned.
He rebelled against the lock-set arms out of obligation, but instead of raging, he sobbed.
— The leader’s name is Pascal. The man handed the Son a cup of steaming ginger tea. They warmed themselves by a sheltered cooking fire.
— Mesye Robert, I have to do this.
— I didn’t say I’d keep you from doing the thing. But you’re going about it wrong. He looked at the steaming tea in his cup, swished it around, contemplated something. I’m trying to help you, Robert said. I didn’t much like your father or his ideas–I’m sorry, but it’s truth–though I don’t want to see his son meet the same end.
— I have to do this.
— As I said, they’ll kill many if you do.
— Then I’ll kill them all.
— That’s nonsense. One blade against half a dozen guns. Robert gave a derisive chuckle. His eyes followed the steam leaping into the air.
— You don’t understand what they took from me.
Robert sipped and snarled. They took my wife in front of my little boy. Violated her. Made him watch. He glared at the Son. I understand a little.
— Join me then. We could get others. We could take them!
Robert sized him up. Revenge–proper revenge–takes planning. They took your father in an instant, but to make them truly pay, to snuff them out, it will take more time. That’s the way these things should be done.
— What then?
A cry came from Robert’s shack.
— Was that your wife? the Son asked.
Robert shook his head. My boy. He doesn’t talk anymore–since the vyolasyon. He just cries out.
— Do you need to go to him?
Robert waved his hand dismissively. He’ll learn to live with pain. It’ll make him stronger.
They sat in uneasy silence.
— I ask again, what do we do?
— We will gather a certain group of men, Robert said. I will call them tomorrow night, by the drum. And wherever these villains lay their heads, we’ll cut them off together.
Dimanche awakens late in the morning. Though not one to indulge his body and its pesky need for rest, the prior days have sapped him.
He came upon Picot and Libète and Celestine. Picot scrambled eggs over a gas cooking flame while Celestine and Libète sat at a square table dragged out to the gallery. It was a cool hour. The sky was gray and clouded, and this made the verdant greens of nearby trees and grass pop. He looked out in the distance and saw fields thriving. The world as it should be. Not concrete and rebar. Not people living on top of one another in filth. His hands itched for work. If they didn’t have to run, he knew how he would spend the day: working in those fields.
Picot put a mug of piping hot coffee into Dimanche’s hand without a word. The boy returned to his stove and eggs.
— Mèsi, Dimanche mumbled.
— Ah! Bonjou, bonjou, bonjou! Celestine said. He gave a small clap and rose from his chair.
Dimanche feigned a smile.
— I thought you’d died, Libète said plainly.
— I might have wished I had. His lips curled subtly, a genuine smile this time. Slowing down for a bit of rest, my memory caught up with me. My memory and I, we aren’t always on good terms.
Libète tapped the table. Dimanche, Celestine and I were talking. Dimanche blew on his coffee. He told me some of your story, she said. Just a bit. About . . . about the loss of your family. I’m sorry.
Dimanche still looked out over the fields. He took a sip of his coffee, cringing at its tang.
— He shared about the men, those evil men, Libète continued. Those who took your parents from you.
— This coffee. It could use some milk, Dimanche said.
Celestine’s eyes widened. Of course. Of course! Picot! Condensed milk! Go for it! He clapped twice.
— But the eggs, the boy protested.
— Now!
Picot killed the flame and grumbled as he slipped out toward the main road.
— Did you . . . kill some of them then?
— I tried. It would have been suicide to attack them on my own. My neighbor stopped me. He had another idea.
— Yes?
— We spread the word. That the murderers–they were paramilitaries, members of FRAPH–were dispatched to break us as a reprisal for our politics. The neighbor used his drum. Men gathered. I knew these men, but did not know them like this, not by night. We discussed and argued over what to do. In total, we had eight willing to attack them. We matched their number. We gathered our weapons and set out for their camp.
— Yes? Libète was sitting on the edge of her chair.
— They were gone.
Glad to hear he hadn’t been forced to kill, Libète sighed unconsciously. Dimanche saw her. He wanted to both tell the truth and hide it.
— Gone? she asked. But to
where?
— Pascal–that was the leader’s name–and his pack of dogs fled. Slipped back to whatever foul place they’d come from. We thought they’d been warned we were coming. He chuckled. They were afraid, we learned, but not of us. It was the American soldiers come to liberate us.
— You lost track of them?
The words gave him pause. I never lost them. They’ve never left my thoughts.
Picot returned, slamming two small cans of condensed milk on the table. He struck a match and relit his flame.
— What manners, Celestine muttered under his breath. He reached for a bottle opener and pierced the cans, pouring the milk into both Libète’s and Dimanche’s mugs. The white swirled until it claimed the black.
Libète had a thousand questions but respected Dimanche’s quiet. Picot soon came out with three plastic plates and placed a mound of eggs and a piece of bread on each.
— You should see the road, Picot said. Everyone is out. There’s a truck–
— So what? Celestine said abruptly. Trucks always pass through.
— But the men in the truck. They have guns. They’re asking all around. Looking for some man and some girl who have done something–
Libète dropped her mug. It cracked and shattered and spilled.
Their faces are pink, their fatigues are green, their guns are large.
They speak a language the Son knows is called ‘Angle’ but that he’s never heard uttered on that mountaintop he calls home. He watches them from the roadside. His few possessions are stuffed in a djakout bag slung over his shoulder.
The paramilitaries’ disappearance consumed the Son. The desire to see them dead overwhelmed him.
Two days passed. Every moment he spent attempting to return to life as it was before his parents were taken he heard a nagging whisper fill his ears:
“They got away. You let them get away, you fool. If only you had acted instead of letting fear and Robert keep you from killing them . . .”
But the paramilitaries had left nothing behind. No clues. All he knew was a name–Pascal–and that the eight men who had ruined his life were not where he was. If he was to kill them, the conclusion was obvious: he could not remain here.
After nearly a day of walking down mountain paths, he reached an uneven road. He had heard gunshots, and when he did, he rushed toward them.
He found their source. The pink-faced men in green were parked on the roadside in a jeep. He watched them laugh as smoke climbed from their cigarettes, as smoke climbed from their gun barrels. Lying at the vehicle’s wheels was a corpse, a black man, a paramilitary. He had a gun clutched in his lifeless hand.
After the cigarettes were spent, the Americans reluctantly got down from the jeep with a black body-length bag and prepared to use it to swallow up the dead man.
This man was one of the eight. The Son knew it. This was his only chance. He knew it.
From out of the shadows he sprang, shouting, Bonswa!
Guns leaped to the soldiers’ hands. He dropped himself and his things to the ground and raised his hands high.
— Souple! Souple! he shouted, Please! Please!
One of the soldiers stepped down with his gun drawn and moved toward the Son. The American let loose a flood of gibberish. The Son trembled. The soldier lowered his gun and turned back around. All breathed in relief.
But the Son followed on his hands and knees. Souple, he said again. Souple. Pèmèt mwen. He reached out and touched the soldier’s boot. The soldier spun and yelled another command, but the Son could not understand. He also did not care to understand.
— Souple. Souple. He gestured to himself and the dead man. Pèmèt mwen. M ka ede ou.
The soldier frowned and gave a sharp wave. The Son could not be so easily dissuaded.
— Souple. The Son ran to the dead man, picked up the body bag, straightened it. He looked up, nodding, forcing a smile. Pèmèt mwen, he said again. Pèmèt mwen. He saw the paramilitary’s face up close. The bullet wound was on his forehead. It was small, above his right eye. His stare was vacant and his mouth pursed, like he died with a question on his lips.
The Son slipped the bag over the dead man’s ill-fitted boots. He kicked the gun aside. He gave a servile smile as he ran his hands into the man’s pockets and pulled out his effects: a photo of a white nude woman, some money, cigarettes, some hand-scrawled notes, a picture of a child. He stuffed them into his pockets. The three soldiers watched him, bemused.
The body bag was zipped, and the Son hoisted the dead man into the back of the jeep. He let the soldier handle the gun, and the Son eyed it, wondering if it was the one that ended his parents. The soldier in the back of the jeep with him gave a sort of smile, and the one in the road climbed into the driver’s seat.
— Anba, the Son said.
— Huh? the driver said.
— Anba. The Son pointed down the mountain.
The soldiers said something, argued briefly, before the driver acquiesced. The Son rushed to grab his things before their minds changed, and soon they were trundling down the mountain’s unforgiving road.
The journey into Menard passed in a blur, but he paid the changing landscape no heed. He heard pooled blood swish about the body bag and imagined the man’s face and the bullet hole, all the while lamenting that he had not been the one to put it there.
Libète cannot move. Her mug is still on the floor in pieces. The eggs on her plate are untouched. She cannot move.
— It’s a long way to Okap from here, Celestine says. Do you know the way?
Dimanche shoots from his chair. We’ll have to stay off the main roads. They’ll be all over them.
— There’s a new road, Celestine says. Up the mountain. It goes all the way up.
— Byen, Dimanche says. He bolts upstairs.
Libète cannot move.
Celestine fills water bottles, orders Picot to throw together all the food he can.
She watches them rush about her. But her coffee. The mug. It spilled . . .
— Libète, get up and get your things. Dimanche’s order stirs her.
— Yes, she says. Yes.
— We have a long journey ahead. By foot, unfortunately.
She doesn’t know if she is up for it. As she climbs the stairs to her room, her eyes water. As she fills her red pack, those waters fall.
Within minutes she was back down. Dimanche and Celestine stood on the threshold of the yard and watched her come toward them.
Celestine looked to Dimanche as a father does his child. He clapped him on the back of the neck. He pulled Dimanche close, hugged him, whispered something in his ear. Dimanche stood limply, then hugged him back.
The pair left Menard on a trail to the east, through fields of cabbage. The ground started level and led to a grove that cast dappled shadows on the ground. She knew the mountains ahead meant their route would soon rise.
She spent a time thinking over his words.
He said they were gone.
From them, she pieced a story together.
He said they were all gone.
Her chest tightened.
Then he is a killer.
— Tell me, Dimanche. If it’s a long road ahead. Please. Tell me all. To go from your village to being a policeman in Port-au-Prince? Leading some shadow life that saw you hunt these men along the way?
He walked ahead, not offering her a view of his face. Suddenly, he spoke.
— I got a ride with a group of American soldiers down the mountain. When their jeep reached Menard, I learned the paramilitaries had passed through the town. In all my life I had never even seen a town this size before. Pascal and the others fought the Americans there, those who had come after the coup. But those seven paramilitaries, they got away. I thought I was already at the end of my hunt. No money. No education. I was just an ignorant peasant. You heard it from Celestine, I’m sure. He took pity on me. Showed me kindness. Let me work his fields. In time, I became his lieutenant. In charge of his whole operation
.
— How did you do it?
— I was trè konsantre. Very focused. Quite solemn in those days.
— More than now?
— The years have softened me.
They walked in quiet. The Sun had broken through the cloudbanks, and the first wave of sweltering heat settled over the valley. They reached the forest, and Libète picked a fallen branch from the ground to occupy her hands.
— You stayed with Celestine for a long while?
— Just over two years.
— He lives so simply now. Hard to believe he owned so much.
— His fortunes changed with the country’s. You saw he was a bit scattered. Never had a head for business. Foreign rice flooded the land when trade barriers were lowered. That was a condition of President Aristide’s return to Haiti after he was ousted. Celestine’s family had farmed their own land for centuries, and poof, in a few years it was all but gone. I slowed the decline. But stopping it? Impossible.
— He didn’t seem destitute.
— His kids send him money from abroad. He could have left Haiti, even back then. He’s stubborn. To my knowledge he’s never left the country.
— Why did you leave Menard, then? Having it so well after losing so much? She poked him with her stick. I saw it myself, he loved–loves–you. Like a son.
— I’ve only been a son once, Dimanche snapped, then sighed. His home could only be a waystation, he said. While with him I learned math, learned to read, learned to manage. With proper feeding my body thickened. I was able to keep track of details others missed. I proved my worth. In time the notes I took from the dead man’s pocket came alive.
— What do you mean?
— Celestine helped me realize what they were. One was an address, in Port-au-Prince. As it turned out, one of his compatriot’s homes.
— He wanted you to hunt these men down?
Dimanche looked only at the road ahead. Of course not. After I felt like I had repaid my debt to him – Dimanche swept his hands one against the other – I left. To Port-au-Prince.
— And you joined the police.
— If I was found to have killed men while standing on one side of the law, I could be taken easily myself. So I chose the other side. I was assigned to Cité Soleil after having success elsewhere in Port-au-Prince. I took the post. What difference did it make? It was a dangerous assignment. But I had no family and didn’t care about the low pay. The hunt was the thing. Dimanche recalled it all with something like remorse.